


Slayer, Slayer

by DragonsAndCryptids



Series: FT one-shots [4]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mild Blood, Pre-Relationship, Self-Harm, Slayer magic, dw it gets sorted out eventually, gray has a lot of issues okay, neither one of them are good at feelings so they just suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24879013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonsAndCryptids/pseuds/DragonsAndCryptids
Summary: Gray didn't realize the consequences of accepting slayer powers until it was too late, and like hell he's going to let his magic change him like this.Natsu doesn't understand why Gray won't just embrace his new magic, but he's not going to let him destroy himself like this.
Relationships: Natsu Dragneel/Gray Fullbuster
Series: FT one-shots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618369
Comments: 2
Kudos: 74





	Slayer, Slayer

The rattle in his chest was what tipped him off to the change. 

It was faint, so faint, that even Natsu could barely hear it, so of course no one else could, but he knew what that rattle was. 

Ice. 

And of course, there were only so many reasons that Gray’s lungs would have ice in them. 

Even Natsu wasn’t dumb enough not to figure something like that out. He could hear the scraping metal in Gajeel’s lungs, the swirling air in Wendy’s. He knew that fire crackled in his own chest. 

So for Gray’s chest to be filled with ice, he had to be a slayer. 

* * *

_ Two days after Fairy Tail’s disbandment, Gray was already regretting his decision to stick with Juvia.  _

_ He didn’t want her alone, but he didn’t want to be alone  _ with _ her. Maybe he should have gone with Erza, or Cana, or maybe even Lucy. Anyone but Juvia, really. He had no idea why he’d even thought it would go well in the first place. He didn’t think he could call it leading her on, when he’d told her over and over he wasn’t interested, but he knew that wasn’t how she saw it.  _

_ But it wasn’t like it mattered. Nothing could be done about it now, unless he wanted to take off on his own, hurting her even more and leaving her alone.  _

_ He knew how awful alone was, and not even how annoying Juvia could be made him want to leave her alone.  _

_ He coughed.  _

_ “Gray, darling?” Juvia leaned over, readjusting the bag on her shoulder. “You’ve been coughing all day. We can stop and rest if you’re feeling ill.”  _

_ He shook his head. They needed to keep moving, find somewhere to actually settle down. The heaviness in his chest, and the frost that coated his lips with each cough could be dealt with later.  _

* * *

It wasn’t until some time after the battle that Natsu got the chance to confront Gray about it. Obviously, he couldn’t say anything while Gray was undercover in Avatar, he’d been too angry, and it wasn’t like Gray would listen to him in an environment like that anyways. Then the battle had happened, and he couldn’t do anything about it then either. Even  _ after _ the battle, everyone was so happy to see each other and wanted to catch up, and Natsu sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up around everyone (even if Gajeel and Wendy had to have noticed, too). 

Finally,  _ finally _ everyone went to sleep for the night, just off the edge of the battlefield, wanting to spend it together before they set off and met back up in Magnolia in a few days. 

But he couldn’t sleep. Even if he wanted to, he was still buzzing with energy. 

He stared into the fire, watching the last few embers of it flickering weakly. He could relight it, but the sudden heat and light might wake everyone else up. 

Well, everyone who was asleep. 

“Better go to bed soon,” Gray said. “I know how much you like to sleep. Erza will have everyone up with the sun.” 

Natsu shifted, pulling his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them. He knew there was no point in telling Gray the same thing. Ever since they were kids, Gray had never slept well. Tossing and turning all night, taking hours to actually fall asleep in the first place. Natsu and Erza had given up on trying to get him to sleep years ago. “You’re fighting it, aren’t you?” he asked, his eyes still glued to the fire. 

Gray was silent for a minute, before asking, “What the hell are you talking about?” 

Natsu glanced at him, sitting on the other side of the fire. The dying sparks left his eyes shining in an unnatural way. 

Shining in a way that no human eye was supposed to. 

“Changing,” he clarified. “Changing because of your slayer powers.” 

Gray opened his mouth to say something, before closing it and turning away. 

“You can’t do that,” Natsu muttered. “You… You just can’t.” It would hurt, it would tear him apart, eventually. Slayer powers didn’t take  _ no _ for an answer. 

“I’m managing,” he finally said. 

But Natsu could hear it in his voice. He was lying. So obviously lying. “You have to embrace them. You have to—” 

“What, like  _ you?” _ Gray demanded. “Accept whatever the hell this is and start eating chunks of ice and sniffing at things like some animal and stop filing my stupid fucking teeth down?” 

Natsu flinched, but then the words registered, and— “Don’t file your teeth!” What the hell was  _ wrong _ with him? That would have to  _ hurt. _ Not to mention they were never going to stay blunt like he wanted. 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Gray huffed. 

Natsu wanted to argue, he really did, but if Gray had really dug his heels in this deep… He sighed, and laid down, pulling Happy closer and curling around him. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep. 

Gray pulled him off to the side the next morning and apologized. Said he didn’t really mean it, and Natsu was fine how he was, and that he was tired and upset and—

Natsu told him it didn’t matter. 

* * *

_ Gray wasn’t stupid. He’d grown up with a slayer, and knew quite a few fairly well. It didn’t take him long at all to realize what was happening to him  _

_ He hadn’t thought about it when he’d accepted the abilities his father gave him, hadn’t considered the long term consequences of something like that.  _

_ He knew that slayer magic ate away at you, twisted you, stole your humanity. The other slayers he knew didn’t care, but that was just because they hardly remembered anything else. They’d been made slayers as  _ children. _ They had  _ no idea _ what it was like to lose yourself in a way like this.  _

_ He pretended not to notice his steadily heightening senses, the way he could hear Juvia’s heart rate accelerate when he gave her any attention at all, the different scents that literally  _ everything _ had.  _

_ But it was fine. He could ignore it. He  _ had _ to ignore it, because he couldn’t handle this right now.  _

_ Then one day, not long after he and Juvia had moved into that little cabin, while she went out to get some more food and supplies for them, he caught a glimpse of something in the mirror that wasn’t  _ quite _ right.  _

_ He froze, hoping, and  _ praying _ that it was a trick of the light, that he was seeing things. He leaned closer to the mirror, and dared to bare his teeth.  _

_ He nearly broke down then and there,  _ horrified _ by what he saw.  _

_ He’d woken up the previous night with a toothache, but he never thought…  _

_ Natsu told them slayers had sharpened teeth to help with eating their elements, and as another weapon against whatever it was they were fighting. It was an evolution, of sorts, Wendy had said, meant to help them live as the mostly-human-but-not-quite beings they were now. Gajeel said they had fangs because that’s just how slayers were, and if they had them, might as well fucking use them.  _

_ Gray didn’t want them.  _

_ He peeled his lip up, and poked at the tooth, wincing at how sharp it was.  _

_ Not all his teeth had sharpened, and that was a small blessing. A set on the top had sharpened, as well as one on the bottom, but he had a feeling this might just be the beginning.  _

_ He let his hands fall, and let those black markings crawl over his skin.  _

_ He looked like a  _ monster. __

_ Gray refused to let his humanity go without a fight. He forced the markings away, and flicked his fingers.  _

_ He stared at the file he’d created, and before he could think too much about it, scraped it against his tooth.  _

_ He broke through six files before he even began to make a difference in that one tooth. It  _ hurt. _ Blood seeped from his gums, dripping from his teeth and running down his chin. Maybe it would be easier just to rip them out, but he quickly shoved the thought away.  _

_ He could  _ do this. _ Just file them down, and that would be the end of it. No one would have to know.  _

_ It took hours. By the end of it, his face was stained with tear tracks, and he’d torn up the insides of his cheeks and gums. His teeth  _ ached, _ but they were blunt, flat, like they were  _ supposed _ to be, and that was all that mattered.  _

_ He just barely got the blood and tears cleaned up by the time Juvia came back.  _

_ She didn’t notice a thing.  _

* * *

Wendy and Gajeel had been avoiding him ever since the guild had gotten back together. Well, Gray probably wouldn’t have noticed Gajeel staying out of his way, but Wendy avoiding him had him concerned. 

He got the sick feeling he might know why. 

“What did I do?” he asked Natsu. 

He shrugged. “They can sense you haven’t accepted it, it makes you volatile. Smarter to stay away.” 

He frowned. He wasn’t dumb enough to think Gajeel was freaked out by him fighting back against his slayer abilities, it was probably more that he just didn’t want to deal with it, but it hurt to know that Wendy was nervous around him now. “But not you?” he asked. 

Natsu shrugged again, but didn’t give an answer beyond that. 

_ There was still one person Gray trusted with his whole being that he knew the exact location of.  _

_ Though Juvia protested, he decided to go visit Lamia Scale.  _ Without _ her.  _

_ As soon as he saw his brother, he broke down. They didn’t even make it inside the Lamia Scale guildhall. He fell into Lyon’s chest, and muttered, “Something’s happening to me, Lyon.”  _

_ Lyon’s eyes widened, concern written all over his face, before he ushered Gray inside and sat him down in a dark corner, where hopefully no one would bother them. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Is it… I tried to reach out, when I heard what happened with your guild, but I couldn’t find—”  _

_ Gray shook his head. It wasn’t Lyon’s fault he hadn’t gotten a hold of him. Gray hadn’t exactly left any contact information behind in the crater where their guildhall had once been. “It’s not that.” He could accept that Fairy Tail was gone. He  _ could. _ He could accept that Erza was off running missions with Jellal and that Cana was probably drinking herself into debt and Natsu was… was… He  _ could _ move on. He _ would _ move on. He  _ had _ to accept it. “I—I…” He took a deep breath. “Weird things have been happening to me. Since Tartaros.”  _

_ Lyon tried to drag him out of his seat. “I’m taking you to Wendy and Chelia right now!” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t you  _ tell _ anyone? It’s been _ weeks! _ It could be a curse!”  _

_ Gray yanked himself out of his brother’s hold. “No, it’s  _ not. _ It’s my magic.  _ Mine. _ It changed. It’s changing  _ me.” _ He rubbed at his wrist, where the markings would be if he called on them. He never thought his father’s abilities would do whatever the hell this was to him. Would he have accepted them if he’d known?  _

_ The corner of Lyon’s mouth twisted into a frown. “Explain.”  _

_ So Gray told him. The words tumbled out, his voice devoid of emotion as he recounted meeting his father again, Juvia putting him out of his misery because he was too weak to do such a thing, how his father had given him this magic that just wasn’t satisfied with him the way he was.  _

_ Lyon opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by Wendy dashing over, squealing, “Gray! It’s so good to see you!” She wrapped her arms around him, and began babbling about something that he honestly wasn’t paying attention to in the slightest.  _

_ Lyon gave him an apologetic look, but Gray didn’t care.  _

_ Whatever Lyon had been about to say wasn’t going to fix him. He didn’t know why he’d even come here in the first place. It wasn’t like his brother was going to have a solution for him.  _

* * *

“Don’t go into a war like this, Gray,” Natsu warned. 

He glared at him. “I’m not going to roll over and let everyone else fight without me.” 

Natsu bared his teeth, a snarl rumbling from his chest. As the days passed, he’d been getting more and more aggressive with Gray, likely getting irritated that he wasn’t listening to him. 

Not that Gray cared. It wasn’t any of Natsu’s damn business. 

“You’ll end up doing something you regret,” he said. “You don’t know how to control yourself, and it’s gonna bite you in the ass.” 

Gray crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, like I’m gonna listen to you about  _ control.” _ Who was the one responsible for the most property damage around here? 

“Dumbass,” Natsu muttered, turning on his heel and going to sit with Lucy. 

Natsu had no idea what he was talking about. Gray could fight just fine. 

* * *

_ The second Erza asked Gray to infiltrate Avatar, he accepted. He couldn’t handle another second alone with Juvia. He couldn’t handle what he was changing into.  _

_ Avatar was away from Juvia. Avatar was a place where he could pretend this new power was all a part of the act.  _

_ He felt an ounce of guilt for leaving Juvia alone, after promising himself he wouldn’t.  _

_ But not nearly enough to stop him.  _

* * *

Gray’s entire body shuddered. The rough wood of his apartment floor scraped against his bare skin, him having ditched his clothes a while ago. 

Ever since Alvarez, these fits were getting worse and worse. Ever since the first one… When he… When he… 

When he tried to kill Natsu. 

If Erza hadn’t gotten there in time… 

He bit his lip, wincing at the fangs that sliced into his skin. He needed to file them down again, but he could barely get his body to move like he wanted, let alone scrape together the mental fortitude it took to file his teeth away. 

His magic pulsed, spreading through his chest, and frost crawled across the floor, creeping up the furniture. He clutched at his head, fingers tearing into his scalp. 

He just wanted it to  _ stop. _ He wanted his magic back to himself, he wanted his  _ body _ back to himself. He didn’t want to be this! Someone who hurt their friends and couldn’t control himself and was fighting a losing battle with his very being. 

He wanted it to  _ end. _

* * *

_ Natsu made Gray want to blow his cover the second he saw him. Not only had he missed him, not only had he been so,  _ so _ worried that he disappeared like he had, but when he looked into the dragon slayer’s eyes, he knew.  _

_ He knew that Natsu knew.  _

_ Natsu understood what was happening, in a way that only very few people did, and he knew Gray probably better than anyone else. He figured it out in a  _ second. __

_ And it was upsetting. Because Gray knew what Natsu would want him to do. He would want him to accept this part of himself, to become a slayer in every sense of the word, just like him.  _

_ Gray couldn’t do that, though. It was  _ terrifying, _ and he didn’t want to change. He didn’t want to lose himself to this magic, to its whispers and wants. Even if it would make Natsu happy, even if it would give Gray  _ peace, _ that wasn’t something he could just  _ do. __

_ He was  _ human, _ he had to be, and he couldn’t let this magic take that away from him.  _

* * *

Natsu couldn’t say he was surprised to find Gray completely falling apart, but it still hurt. 

He’d been missing for several days now, hadn’t turned up at the guildhall once, even though everyone was celebrating their victory, as well as grieving Master Mavis and the other lives lost. 

Natsu knew why, but he also knew Gray wouldn’t accept his help, because it wasn’t the help he  _ wanted. _

It  _ hurt. _ It hurt so much that Natsu couldn’t give Gray what he wanted, and it hurt that Gray was so disgusted by what Natsu was that he would rather do  _ this  _ to himself than just live as a slayer. 

But Natsu couldn’t do this anymore. It was time to put his foot down, because Gray wasn’t going to survive living like this much longer, and losing him completely would be even more painful. 

It wasn’t hard to ditch Erza and Lucy so he could go find him. Happy was a little more difficult, but he managed. 

He found Gray curled up in the corner of his apartment, layers of ice and frost spreading out from him. Those black markings crawled across his skin, and his fingernails cut so deeply into his upper arms that he drew blood. 

Blood that froze the second it dropped onto the ground. 

Why was he  _ doing _ this to himself? 

Gray lifted his head, and his pupils constricted into cat-like slits, before blowing wide, like they couldn’t decide whether to be human or not. “Natsu?” 

Natsu sighed, his breath billowing through the freezing air. “Do you get it now?” 

Gray hesitated, but nodded. 

“You have to accept them, completely, or you will lose yourself,” he said. Lose himself like he did during their fight, or die. 

Natsu honestly wasn’t sure which would be the worse fate. 

“I—” Gray cut himself off as his entire body shuddered, the ice in the room growing thicker and colder. 

Natsu began to shiver. He didn’t like the cold, he  _ hated _ the cold, but the last thing Gray needed right now was fire, so he would stay cold. 

“I don’t know how,” Gray finally admitted. “I don’t know… what this magic even wants me to do.” 

Natsu had suspected as much. That by this point, even if Gray  _ wanted _ to accept his slayer magic, he’d been fighting it for so long he didn’t know how to give into it. 

Gray uncurled, forced himself up, his entire body shaking with effort. He turned to Natsu, eyes wide and pleading. “I-I-I wanted to find you, you know. As soon as I realized what was going on… but you were gone, and it was easier just to… to pretend it wasn’t happening.” 

Natsu swallowed thickly, guilt unfurling in his chest. If he had been here from the beginning, would this be happening? Could he have convinced Gray that being a slayer was okay, that it didn’t mean completely giving up his humanity like he seemed to think it would? 

“Don’t blame yourself,” Gray said, some of his regular bite creeping into the words. “I was the fucking idiot here. It’s my fault my body is tearing itself apart like this.” 

“I’ll fix it. Please,” Natsu said, finally settling down next to Gray. Fix it like he should have as soon as he found Gray again. He should have pushed harder, not taken no for an answer, not when he  _ knew _ this would happen. “Let me help you. Let me teach you to be a slayer.” 

“Okay.” 


End file.
